Making cultural and tourist attractions accessible and inclusive for people with disability through value co-creation amidst COVID-19: a critical discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

People with disabilities (PwD) are a COVID-19 vulnerable group, and globally they are experiencing even higher rates of social exclusion than before the pandemic. Value co-creation is a process whereby firms and their customers work together to develop service offerings and provides a tool for service improvement during disruptions such as health crises. Although many cultural and tourist attractions have access and inclusion as part of their strategic plans not all of them have turned to value co-creation to address access and inclusion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. They also have varying degrees of understandings about what facilitates social inclusion. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this study explores how museums have addressed access and inclusion in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the degree of uptake, discourses of value co-creation, and how their responses can be categorised. The research design included semi-structured, participatory interviews with 15 managers from eight museums; and ethnographic observation and semi-structured, post-museum visit interviews with 12 PwD. Then, an iterative data analysis process using ATLAS-ti was undertaken. The results provide insight into the social inclusion of PwD in museums during the COVID-19 pandemic.

KEYWORDS:

• Accessible tourism
• value co-creation
• critical discourse analysis
• museums
• COVID-19
• people with disability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by “la Caixa” Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Monica Cerdan Chiscano

Monica Cerdan Chiscano obtained her PhD in Social Innovation in 2009 from Universitat Politecnica de Cataluña, Spain. She has been a Lecturer at various Universities. In 2014, she worked as a Lecturer in various Bachelor and Master Degrees in Barcelona. Her teaching and research areas are tourism for all, responsible tourism, and research skills and methods. In 2016, she became the Co-director of the Academic Chair of Responsible Tourism and Hospitality University Ramon LLull from 2016 to 2018. In 2020, she became Associate Professor at the Open University of Barcelona.

Simon Darcy

Simon Darcy is a Professor in Events, Sport and Tourism at the UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney. He is also Co-Director of the UTS' Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Research Centre. Simon is an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in developing inclusive organisational approaches to diversity groups. His research has spanned a variety of contexts including sport, tourism, events, volunteers, transport, the built environment and disability services. Simon has held grants with the Australian Research Council, Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Centre, the United Nations ESCAP, and has carried out research studies for all levels of government and the private sector. Over the last decade, his body of work on accessible tourism has gained national and international recognition. Simon is actively involved in changing government and industry practice through implementing the outcomes of his research. Since incurring a spinal injury in 1983 Simon is a power wheelchair user and passionately believes in the rights of all people to fully participate in all aspects of community life.